The Lost Girl
by daisy-chains-and-bow-ties
Summary: There is something out there, in the darkness. A monster, hidden in space and time, obscured, but rearing its shaggy, terrible head. It is dragging a girl through time, a once innocent, now ancient, child. The Doctor is chasing her like a fairly tale, a rumour, half-heard, trying to ignore the truth, pretending it's just another errand. But it isn't. It could be the end.
1. Rescue me, Doctor

_A/N: This is a bit of an AU. The Doctor is a woman, because when I wrote she came out (don't ask me why!) and her companion is a boy. The first few chapters are going to be confusing, but all will be explained, just read, and review!_

_Allons-y!_

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**_Disclaimer: I don't own anything you recognise, and I certainly don't own Doctor Who!_**

My name is Amanda Grey, and I've been lost for a while now. The day my life was swept out from beneath me was the most ordinary sort of day you could imagine, with groggy, barefoot padding on the floorboards as dawn light streamed through a crack in the blinds. There was a cup of tea, a lengthy monologue in the mirror that started out as an inspirational speech and turned into a dim realisation of the pointlessness of everything. I locked myself out, kicked the door in frustration, and my toe throbbed vigorously and I got on the bus and watched it drive away.

Yes, you heard that right, because suddenly I was standing on air, gasping, wind-milling my arms, sending my novel spinning through the air, screaming soundlessly. Some people took photos and others called for help and a few entirely failed to notice me. I don't hold it against them.

Then I was gone, and then I was somewhere else. It was a dim little street, and I was standing, thankfully, on my own two feet, watching my breath rise above my head in a cloud of white, shivering in the sudden chill, the memory of my scream still bouncing off the walls and into eternity. I was suddenly and desperately alone. I felt it in my heart, more coherent even than the cold dripping through the hunched bricks.

That was when I saw them first, a woman with her hair chopped short like a boy's, frizzy, watching me with a detached sort of curiosity. And behind her there was a boy, blond, staring at my with innocent eyes and a half-formed smile, and he tried to push past the woman, but she held up a hand, and he stopped, and then I was gone again.

I've been to a lot of places since then. I've seen suns of burning ice and aliens who exist in multiple realities all at once with forms as changeable as the weather. I have witnessed the most beautiful wonders and the most terrible atrocities. I've seen it all, and I haven't gotten a single day older. I'm trapped, spinning through time. Some people would probably think of this as a blessing. All of time and space, the most beautiful things in the universe, a pantheon of love and loss, the kind of things you only ever dream of, and they're mine. I have seen things you wouldn't believe. I've gone farther than I ever imagined and then farther still. I've seen exotic worlds, vast and terrible cities, shanty towns and abandoned star-ships drifting through space. I've seen it all.

Sometimes I materialise for just a few seconds, other times I have a few days. Once it was a few weeks, and there's no order to it. I can't predict it, can't control it. I've watched planets burning; I've watched everyone I love fade away, still searching for my face in the crowd because I've left them with nothing. There's no one left to know my name, or see my face in the stars.

I've learnt many things; I know secrets that would pull the universe apart. I could be the oldest and most powerful being in the universe, and you can't know how terrifying that is. I'm supposed to be wise, but the truth is that age doesn't equal wisdom. I'm the teenager being plunged into world after world, tragedy after tragedy. Do you know what it feels like, to win a war with someone and when they turn around, grinning, breathless, desperately needing a hug, you're just gone? You can never understand what that feels like.

It hasn't all been bad, of course, like most things there are always a few good parts. Really the only thing that makes them bad is that they had to end. I fell in love once. It was New York City, and he was a beautiful, smiling boy who wore frock coats and odd socks and read aloud to me on the subway. I was there for a month, almost long enough to make me think that it was forever. He was the kind of person I'd always been looking for. He wrote poetry and fancied himself a detective and wrote stories about The Case of the Exploding Hat. He was ridiculous and gangly and I miss him. I miss him so much there's no comparison I could make that would aptly describe it.

But he's gone now, turned to dust and scattered in the wind. I should know. I was the one who had to watch him jump. At least he had someone to watch. The saddest thing is when there's no one to watch. I wish he could have just seen me, I wish I'd been brave enough to tell him what I was, but I didn't, and I have to live forever with that.

I remember when I used to get cry over tests in school, or because I was fat. It seems so silly now, but I think it's better to be upset about something silly. I would much prefer to be the annoying little girl than one with her heart torn in two.

I need someone to make it stop, but I'm just an inconsistent fact, constantly in flux, never in the same place for long, yanked back and forth through history. There's no one left to know my name, or see my face in the stars. I am alone and forever falling, never able to just close my eyes and forget no matter how many people I have to watch die, knowing that I can never save them. I'm there one moment and gone the next, just to see some bitter story coming to an end.

There are stories about the Doctor, the protector of worlds, the saviour of lost souls, the nameless god, and I'm calling out, through time.

_Rescue me, Doctor._

...

The Doctor stood on the street corner, watching the girl narrowly avoid a taxi and stumble onto the pavement, commuters jostling her as she sought out the facts that might anchor her for just a little while. She held a strange device out in front of her, scanning the spot where the girl had appeared, frowning at the readings.

A boy stood at her shoulder, eternally tousled, with a thin face and no detectible centre of balance whatsoever, "That's her again", he muttered, "Finally back in this universe again. It's been, what, two months since we last saw her?"

"Hush", the Doctor said impatiently.

"So what do you reckon?" he continued, unabated, "How does she manage to cross into other universes like that?"

The Doctor turned angrily and tried out her best impression of a glare, "Did I not tell you to hush?"

"You did", he said.

"And?"

"I took it under advisement… briefly", he dug his hands into his pockets, "So what's the deal?"

She looked down at the device in her hand and shook it vainly, "It doesn't make any sense!" She insisted, looking back at the girl, standing outside a shop window looking inside, her fingers hovering inches from the glass. "She can't be here. She really can't. You can't just become unstuck in time, not since the Time War, and even that wasn't anything like this. It had a whole lot more to do with temporal displacement than having time act like an independent variable. I don't understand it!" She stomped back along the street, "I hate not understanding!"

The boy turned and grinned, "Stop", he called, and The Doctor turned slowly to face him, "Just stand still for a moment and try to appreciate what it feels like to be me when you're around".

The Doctor rolled her tongue along her teeth, "Good God, why on Earth do you hang around with me then?"

He thought for a moment, "Masochism, I suppose", he decided, and gestured back to the busy street behind him, "What about the girl?"

The Doctor, whose attention had returned to the readings on the device, didn't look up, "Gone", she said shortly, "Again, but I think I know where she'll be next".


	2. Sweater homocide

Hands seized me almost as soon as the strange force that propelled me through time plonked me down on the planet surface. I flapped my arms ineffectually and gasped a fairly pathetic scream into the heavy night air, and suddenly I was heaving breaths that tasted of metal and tea. There was a gentle humming, and I was dumped onto the floor in some strange room, with a large console in the centre of it, glowing faintly and contently. I could feel the walls and the floor beneath me brimming with some ancient personality, and some of the despair I carried around like a constant companion now bled away at its gentle touch.

"Oh, the Tardis is being very nice", someone remarked, sounding surprised, "I wonder why she's doing that".

Someone else touched my arm, "Are you okay? I know I never get used to time travel, and the Tardis offers a great deal more protection than I imagine you're afforded, out there". I looked around at him, a mousy sort of boy with short, brown hair sprinkled with flecks of blond. He wore a white shirt with a very colourful sweater and a scarf he'd no doubt knitted himself, for it was riddled with dropped stitches and not even a little bit scarf-shaped. "I'm sorry about the Doctor, she's a little distracted right now", he continued, "I can make you a cup of tea, if you want?"

I felt the sudden urge to make him leave, so I nodded breathlessly and watched him leave down a side corridor, sitting with my back pressed against a warm railing. A strange woman stood at the console, slapping buttons with a quizzical expression, as though she doubted this was really going to work. It took her a few moments to realise that I was staring at her. She turned and frowned at me with the same distant look I'd seen in her eyes the first time I saw her.

I watched her drinking in every detail of my cobbled-together outfit, with additions from planets scattered throughout space and time. She looked at me like I was her reflection in the mirror, and I heard her mutter something under her breath, "Is that what I really look like now, a load of patchwork put together with apparent carelessness?"

Then she jerked back suddenly, and looked around at the glowing centre of the console, "What was that for? I swear you were nicer to all the other ones. Just because I'm not pretty boy anymore!" She scowled, then smiled slowly, "Oh, I understand now. My manners, must have left them lying somewhere again, forgot to say hello".

She spun around lightly, "Hello there, sorry about that, I do forget about introductions sometimes. It used to be my favourite thing", she paused and closed her eyes, "Hello", she said, grinning, "I'm the Doctor".

"I know", I said.

"Oh, that's too bad. I still don't like it when people already know. Something a bit worrying about it all… Can't think why", she frowned into space and then pulled her attention back to me with visible effort, "Well, if it helps to even it out, I know who you are too".

"Yes", I nodded, "I know that. I've been searching for you too".

The Doctor smiled, "There are lots of people searching for me, and most of them aren't doing it for any good reason, so I must ask, who are you and what have you done to time?"

"Nothing", I said, "The question is what has time done to me".

"I ask the questions", The Doctor sauntered over and sat down opposite me, "Because otherwise nothing gets done, and we don't have a lot of time. Alex thinks that the Tardis will keep you anchored, but she can't do that. She's trying, I'll give her that, but time is pulling at you".

"Can you make it stop?"

"Shh", the Doctor pressed one finger to my lips, "But the answer is yes, or at least I'll try".

"Plenty have before", I mumbled.

"Oh yes, but they suffered from one fatal disadvantage!" The Doctor sprang to her feet once again and began twisting cogs and pulling levers at the console again.

I couldn't help myself, "And what's that?"

She turned and beamed at me, "They weren't me! Now don't worry, this is what I do, more or less, just try and stay put, alright? Can't have you whisked off now can we?"

The Doctor turned back to the Tardis console and began chattering to herself, bemused at some of the words that made it past her lips, senseless chatter with plenty of long words, but really she was listening. And there it was! The Doctor wrenched a lever down and the Tardis lurched wildly. In the hall someone cried out as they spilled lukewarm tea on themselves.

The Doctor busied herself with landing the Tardis while Alex struggled into the room, holding an empty cup of tea and the crushed remnants of two chocolate biscuits in his fist, "You promised to warn me when you were going to do that!" He yelled, setting the empty cup down on the console and dragging off his sweater.

"I really can't sound properly apologetic when all I can think of is the service I've done to the universe by removing yet another one of your sweaters from circulation. You realise they're ridiculous?"

"You're ridiculous", Alex said testily, looking around for the girl, "She's gone again", he noted in a very depressed voice.

"I know", the Doctor said, "I sent her away".

"Is there any point in asking why you did that?"

"No, not right now", she waved her hand at Alex, "Now shut up and mourn your sweater, I'm busy".


	3. An Ancient Enemy

**A/N: This one is quite dialogue heavy, but just bear with me. There's plenty of action to come. I'd really appreciate it if you could review the story :)**

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The Doctor stood at the Tardis, tapping with scant accuracy at the data bank, muttering crossly under her breath, "Crackers!" she exclaimed, "No, wait, I like crackers. Let me think, cauliflower sounds a bit lacklustre. What do I not like that sounds a little bit cool when you shout it?"

"Can we try to concentrate?" Alex snapped from the other side of the room.

"Hush, I'm trying to think".

Alex let his head fall back against the railing, "If you can call that 'trying'", he said darkly.

"Pears", the Doctor cried, "I hate pears! Excellent! Oh, and I heard that. Why did I ever let you come along? You're so…so…"

"Witty?"

"Cheeky".

Alex sighed, "Yeah, just because I might as well be a five-year old to you does not mean you get to treat me like one. I may not be a genius, but I lest I don't get distracted by the colour orange at awkward times!"

"How many times do I have to say this? Orange is a very distracting colour and I'll thank you not to make derogatory comments about any colour!"

"That wasn't a derogatory comment", Alex said, but the Doctor ignored him in favour of stroking the Tardis wall, "I'm sure he didn't mean it like that".

"If you'll look around", Alex said, "The Tardis is not orange".

"She used to be", the Doctor said, and pulled her sonic screwdriver from the pocket of her jacket and pointing it at the screen. "Well if you will insist upon getting mixed up", she said to the Tardis.

"I could be wrong", Alex said, "But shouldn't we be trying to help the girl, instead of standing around talking to the Tardis", he tapped the console, "No offence".

"Kids these days just don't understand that trying to find a temporal anomaly that could be anywhere in any universe takes a little time!" The Doctor shook her head disparagingly, "In any case, she's only part of the problem".

"She needs your help", Alex said.

"Do you think I don't know that?" The Doctor pushed the data bank away and turned to Alex, "But she's just a symptom of a larger problem, or at least that's what I'm starting to suspect. People don't just stop obeying the laws of time, Alex. Whatever happened to her wasn't an accident, and I'm not entirely sure if she isn't being cast out as bait. I suppose we'll find out in a moment".

"A moment? What do you mean?"

The Doctor smiled, "Well, you see, when she was yanked away I followed her, and for the past few minutes something has been trying to hack into the Tardis, and I think I know what it is".

Suddenly, a voice filled the Tardis, and the lights flickered and dimmed and there was a distant, urgent buzzing as the Tardis tried to fight off the invading forces arrayed against it, "Hello Doctor", it said, "It's been a long time, though I suppose that's all relative to you. Did you like my bait? Pretty little thing. I'm so looking forward to eating her".

The Doctor's face fell for a moment and Alex caught a glimpse of incredible sadness before she raised her defences once again, "The universe has made me so suspicious. When I saw what was happening to her, it crossed my mind, but I never expected to be right. Not this time, not about you. Do you realise what you've done, just to get me here? That girl, everything you did to her, and she was just a fish on a hook, dragging me along in her wake".

"Not exactly", the voice said with a note of amusement, "She was more like a worm. You're the fish. I know you probably think that you've got the upper hand here, because you usually do, but not this time. Do you like my trap?"

"If I'm following the right train of thought, you know me better than that", the Doctor said quietly, "I'm here because I chose to come here".

Disembodied laughter filled the Tardis, "Oh Doctor, you can't fool me anymore. You never have a plan, you just do things. Reckless Doctor, silly Doctor. I always said it would end you".

"You seem to be operating on a bewildering level of familiarity with me. My timeline is a bit…" the Doctor said, stroking the Tardis console comfortingly as it whimpered, straining to stay alive. She looked at Alex and grinned, "Wibbly wobbly".

As usual, and as she so often seemed to forget, he was entirely incapable of understanding her obscure references to past adventures and presumably past regenerations, but he smiled back anyway. Something told him she needed it.

She turned back to the console, "Up until a minute ago, you were just a fairly-tale to me, or at least, I wanted badly for you to be just another fairy-tale. So why don't we pretend that I'm an idiot for a moment, if it makes you feel more comfortable, and you can tell me what you want, preferably without trying to murder my Tardis".

"It is strange to think that I know so much about you, and you don't even know my name, do you? All those stories back in your forgotten home, and even the great Lords of Time couldn't fine me. I'm amazed that your Type 40 managed it, really, but you must have made adjustments to her. She's shuddering now, you know. Can you feel it? I'm that terrible Doctor. The Tardis is afraid of me", the Doctor's shoulders tensed, her skinny shoulders strained. Alex could feel the anger radiating from her.

"Yes, yes", she said impatiently, "Our histories are equally great and equally terrible, the same old routine. You think I'm evil and that fascinates you. It's captured the attention of many people before, and I'm tired of having to correct them. This may come as a disappointment, but I'm not you, I'm not anything like you", the Doctor's face was creased with revulsion, "So stop playing with me".

Alex stared between the faintly glowing Tardis heart and the Doctor, looking up at it with fury in her bright green eyes, clutching the Tardis as though it might slip between her fingers. After travelling with the Doctor for a few years, he'd gotten used to dealing with crazy mind boggling plot twists, but their winding idea of conversation was nonetheless failing to wrap itself around his head.

"Yes, I know who you are", the Doctor continued, "The Tardis recognised you when I brought the girl inside. She was trying to fight you off, but she couldn't risk hurting the girl, so it came across as simple warmth, but the Tardis doesn't just warm to people like that", he patted the console, "Do you, my dear?"

"Of course", the voice boomed, "I had forgotten about your Tardis and our little bit of history. That was a long time ago. I was sure you'd entirely missed it".

"I couldn't risk interfering then", the Doctor replied, "I might have damaged the Tardis. She didn't tell me, because she almost didn't believe it herself. After all this time, all this space we've seen, we still couldn't see the obvious".

Alex couldn't keep his mouth shut any longer, "Who is that, Doctor?"

"Shh", the Doctor hissed, and looked up at the centre of the console, "What do you want? Why go to all this trouble just to bring me here?"

"Is that selective memory of yours playing up again, dear Doctor? Because you seem to be labouring under the delusion that you and I are strangers. I suppose I sound a little different, but you aren't an idiot. No, I would go so far as to say that you're one of the most intelligent beings in the universe, which is saying something, but you know that. You've seen every dark street and every dusty corner, or at least enough to stop being so surprised when things jump out from them. I don't expect that you've forgotten me, because if you remembered you'd know exactly why I brought you here".

The Doctor shook her head slowly and gazed sadly up at the flickering Tardis lights, "I wish I didn't have to be right all the time", she murmured, "But I suppose that's a side effect of being clever and possessing anything but a selective memory".

It chuckled, "There are things you've chosen to disregard about yourself, and the company you seem to drag around with you like a dead weight. Does the human know about you, Doctor, of is he just vaguely aware of what you are, or more importantly, who you are?"

The Doctor glanced at Alex, something akin to regret in her dark eyes, "I don't disregard anything, but there are certain secrets I can never share, and certain deeds that are better left in the past. It's a Time Lord curse, knowing so much, but keeping it locked away until your hearts feel like they might burst. A curse I have to bear if this universe is to continue merely bulging at the seams".

Alex hopped onto the railing, "Okay, I'm bored with being quiet, and if I'm honest your old people conversation is getting a little tedious. You can stop playing around with the idea of sharing a few choice secrets with me and thus tearing apart my poor, pathetic, misguided trust in her, because I can tell you right now that nothing you can tell me will ever change my mind about her. So yeah, shut up, and cut to the chase, because I'm used to running, and we haven't done much of it lately".

The Doctor shot him a disparaging look, to which he replied with a shrug. She stood silhouetted in the few dim lights that still glowed as the Tardis lost power, her hair sticking up at the back, lying astonishingly flat despite all her unconscious ruffling. She wore a shirt, rolled up to the sleeves, her bare, lightly muscled arms tensed, and over that a waistcoat with peculiar symbols embroidered onto it. Alex couldn't read a word of it, because the Tardis didn't bother translating Gallifreyan. Her screwdriver was stuffed into the pocket, glinting in the dying light. She wore pants she'd apparently borrowed from Anne Bonny when they'd fished her out of the sea.

The disembodied being said nothing for a moment, "They're always so feisty, these little companions of yours. I've been watching, you know. Very closely".

"I assumed as much", The Doctor said dryly, "But as Alex said, can we get a move on with things here, because I really can't afford to dawdle when there's all of time and space to be getting on with".

"Oh, I wouldn't be too concerned with your schedule, Doctor. You won't be leaving here anytime soon. You might as well resign yourself to that fact. I've been very bored, and there's nothing more entertaining to watch than despair, especially in someone like you". There was a rattling sound, like someone was dragging air into tortured lungs, "There are so many secrets in your big little box, so many corners where you daren't tread, Doctor. Secrets the world isn't even a little bit ready for. Secrets that could tear apart time, if I felt like sharing them".

The Doctor laughed, but it was high and cold and unsettling. It was the laugh of a stranger, "Stop it, just stop it. We've already established that I'm really very clever, so don't try to mess with my head. You can't share my secrets with the world, not here. You're trapped".

"Ah, but knowledge is a strange thing. Maybe I can't share it with the world, but I can share it with your little friend", Alex flinched. He grasped the railing involuntarily, and snatched his hand away. It was freezing. The Doctor stroked the Tardis, slowly, achingly, sadly. "He thinks he knows all about you, but no one does. Well, not before now".

The glowing centre of the Tardis was fading faster now, throwing the console room into near darkness, and the Doctor turned her head and looked at Alex, pressed against the freezing railing, and he looked back.

There was terror in her eyes, real, crushing terror and her eyes seemed to plead with him. "Hmm, what should I tell him? There are so many choices. You have been naughty, Doctor. It almost makes me insecure, but I'm sure this will redeem me".

The Doctor barely heard what it said next. She watched Alex's eyelids flutter as he slid down the railings, eyes scrabbling blindly at the darkness, and she felt herself running forward.

And after that she remembered only the darkness.


	4. Rose

**Hello again! **

**Sorry about the wait. School and tedium (ugh). So, this one's short enough, but there's a bit of Rose and Ten, so hopefully that makes up for it.**

**Don't forget to review if you enjoy it. It really helps with inspiration and whatnot.**

**Allons-y!**

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The water churned violently around her, and she struggled in much the same way she struggled against everything, fiercely, but pointlessly. "Come on, Doctor!" she could barely think over the tidal roar, "Think of a plan; you're good at that".

She groped for her sonic, and it glowed through the water, feverishly hot to the touch and she held it out above her, hoping that she was facing upwards, and held down the button. It let off a shrill keening sound and she shot upwards, sucking in one panicked lungful of water before shooting about a metre into the air.

She flopped down onto cold steel, coughing water, and had barely a moment to wonder how on Earth she'd managed that before someone's dirty white runner came within inches of her face. She rolled away, startled, and pushed her fringe back off her face. And there she was, looking about her with a bemused, but excited, expression, the one she was so used to seeing on another face now.

"Rose", the Doctor breathed, and then Rose had turned and was looking right at her. No, right through her, and she heard a voice, wafting along the passage through which Rose had no doubt come, "It's an old mining operation". He appeared (she appeared, if you want to get into that) with his hands deep in his pockets, rake thin inside that wonderful pinstriped suit. She missed it, but memories are sometimes best left buried in the Tardis where they belong.

The Doctor watched herself stride into the room, her hair artfully untameable, "There's no one here anymore", he continued, "They bled the planet dry and left".

Rose looked at the dusty line of consoles, with an array of faintly flickering lights, "Why would they do that?" she asked.

The Doctor shrugged, "It takes a lot of fuel to run the universe. There are planets like this everywhere; uninhabitable, just waiting to be gutted".

"It's not right", Rose said, with conviction, "They just destroy entire planets and leave?"

"They have to get energy from somewhere, and this is preferable to what the Sontaran do. It's like on Earth, when you dump all your rubbish somewhere. You're destroying your own planet already. It doesn't take a stretch of the imagination for it to come to this". But Rose was still frowning, pensive.

The Doctor was more than a little puzzled. Rose had seen world burn, she'd held her father's hand as he died, she looked into the heart of the Tardis. She was Bad Wolf, yet an old mining operation still had the ability to upset her. He was mystified, and more than a little confused at the procedure for comforting her. She didn't seem in the mood to go and get chips. He opened his mouth, closed it, indecisive.

Eventually, he strolled to her and put his arms around her shoulders, pulling her tightly against him, "What's wrong?" he said it gently, apprehensively.

"Nothing", she said, wiping a tear from her eye. It seemed like a pretty big contradiction, "Well, it's just, everything ends".

He stared at her for a moment, "I suppose it does. Well, I know it does".

She nodded, "You know better than anyone".

"I suppose", he said, "But there are things I don't know too. You can never really know whether or not something's going to last forever when it's still happening. 900 years of time and space doesn't give you all the answers".

"Maybe this doesn't have to end", Rose said, almost to no one in particular, "We could find a way".

The Doctor nodded. He didn't say yes; it seemed like chancing fate. The more you know about the universe, the more you realise that you don't know anything. So you take precautions. You don't chance fate.

They stood and watched the red lights blinking, then Rose squirmed out of his grip, "Right, this is boring", she reached out and took his hand, "Let's try for 'fun' this time, yeah?"

He grinned, "Oh, I'm the king of fun".

Rose made a face, "Don't".

"Okay, I'm just the Doctor then", he pulled her towards the door, "Quickly now, we only have all of time and space".


	5. My Ponds

**Here's the next chapter. Sorry for the wait!**

**Allons-y!**

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The Doctor stood quite still for a moment, her sonic hanging limply between her slender fingers, dripping wet. Evidently, she was somewhere in her own mind, which tended to err on the vast and terrible side, and knowing her the slightest reference to another part of her long life would no doubt drag her right into it.

She tried to ignore the ache in her hearts from seeing Rose again. They'd been so happy, back then, so blissfully unaware of what was to come.

"Who was that?" the Doctor jumped, and turned, wide eyed. There he was, wreathed in the flow of a flickering light, still very much intact.

"You're alive!" she breathed, running to him. He raised his arms in defeat and wheezed as she slammed into his chest, almost unbalancing him.

"No need to sound so surprised", he said, then sobered, "Exactly how much trouble are we in?"

The Doctor pointed her sonic at him and he sighed theatrically, "What are you doing?"

"Checking for injuries, temporal irregularities, funny smells…" She examined the reading and beamed at him.

"So what's the verdict?" he asked.

"No injuries, a wardrobe full of temporal irregularities. All quite normal", she replied happily.

"I could have told you that myself; I mean the smell".

She glared at the sonic, "It told me I was being stupid, which seems highly unlikely to me".

"Well, now that you mention it", Alex began, but the Doctor hugged him again before he could finish. He hadn't really planned to finish it anyway. Though he hated to admit it, the Doctor was the cleverest person he'd ever met and the silliest of course, but they go hand in hand, or else things become tediously boring.

He looked over her should, to where the girl had stood, with that thin man he vaguely recognised. She had been very pretty, "Who was that?" Alex repeated.

The Doctor's hands fell down by her sides, and she looked at him sadly, "Her name was Rose", she said.

"Was?"

"Oh, she's still alive", the Doctor said, "But it's been a long time since I saw her last. Things happened and she ended up in a parallel universe. I thought I'd never see her again".

"But you did?"

"Oh yes! We saved the world, again", and she suddenly sobered, her thoughts drawn to the old family. The one she'd had before, but they'd all faded away, over time. She'd said goodbye, left them to the lives they'd managed to salvage once she was through with them. She looked at Alex, and found herself asking once again if she could justify plucking these people out of their worlds and into hers.

Alex nodded, "So that was you, as a man".

"As a male", she corrected, "But yes".

Alex gestured to his head, "The hair".

The Doctor waved her hand dismissively, "That's nothing. You should have seen the chin last time".

They both laughed, and the Doctor began tapping on the nearest wall, running her sonic along its length, scowling at the results. Alex watched her in silence for a while, but there were a thousand questions stemming from what she'd just told him. The Doctor was not so much secretive as reluctant to talk about her past, and he'd travelled with her for long enough to know why. The universe isn't a safe place.

"Did you love her?" he found himself asking, and she froze, her thin shoulders hunched. He saw her jaw moving furiously and she nodded slowly.

She set about her activities with renewed vigour, uttering a stream of intelligible comments under her breath. Alex wandered around the room, examining the consoles. He was just tapping one of the red lights experimentally (one learned to press buttons when travelling with the Doctor) when something occurred to him.

He stopped dead and stared fearfully at the metal beneath his feel, "If I was just looking at you and you didn't immediately charge up and create a paradox, then that must mean…" Alex looked at the Doctor, but she ignored him. "Oh God", he said, "Please don't tell me that I'm inside your head!"

The Doctor smiled woodenly at him, "Umm, not sure", she held out a hand, "Now come along-"

Reality flew out from beneath their feet, and for several seconds they spiralled through darkness punctuated my brief images of room and planets and people he'd never seen before. Then they both fell onto a soft pile of discarded wiring, or what Alex could only assume, by their texture, were wires. It wasn't as dark, and there was a comforting humming beneath the sounds of the Doctor shifting beside him.

He groaned, but the disgruntled noise caught in his throat as voices floated through the gloom. "Doctor", someone said in a Scottish accent, "Do we have to trample around in the dark? I've been nice to the Tardis all morning. Aren't there lights down here?"

"Yes", someone replied impatiently, "But I asked her to turn them off".

"Why?" the Scottish girl asked.

"It's supposed to be a surprise", the second person said crossly.

The Doctor was very still beside him, as though frozen, and Alex could only assume that this was yet another of her memories, with yet another person she'd rather not encounter again. He knew she didn't like to repeat things, because all the things she started seemed to end in tears, and that was hard. There are some days you never want to live again, and some memories better left untouched. But a moment later Alex heard her muttering, "This was their wedding night. She was conceived today. That's still weird".

"Who is that?" Alex hissed.

Somehow, he felt the Doctor smiling, "That's Amy Pond, and her Rory".

At that moment another person spoke, "That's very mysterious, but as I've already tripped over three things, I think you should probably turn the lights back on – OUCH! Four! Four things!"

"And a lizard", the other person, who Alex assumed to be the Doctor, chirped happily.

"Oh, stop whining!" Amy said crossly, but a moment later Alex heard a sound that sounded suspiciously like snogging.

"That is SO embarrassing", the other Doctor complained, "We're almost there", he added a moment later.

"Come on, Rory", Amy said.

Gradually, they moved out of ear-shot, and the Doctor sat in silence.

"So", Alex said, "Who were they?"

The Doctor lay back on the pile and entwined her fingers across her stomach, "The Ponds. My Ponds". Alex was about to inelegantly ask what had happened to them when they heard a groaning, distant, as though it were coming from deep in the depths of the Tardis.

Leaping to her feet, the Doctor's sonic shone green in the darkness, "Everything's fine here", she said, scratching her head, "The Tardis is stable, do you feel like we're tilting? No, that's not it. Not tilting. It's like it's making some tremendous effort".

"Right", Alex said, trying to sound serious and completely on the same wavelength, "So that must mean…" He trailed off, "Yeah, so basically… I have no clue".

Suddenly, the Doctor whacked herself sharply on the head with the sonic, "Of course. We're in my head". She set off in a random direction and Alex tried to follow, but he caught his foot in the wires and ended up on his face. The Doctor continued to talk, oblivious, "Aha! Yes, we're in my head, and nothing's wrong here, so I must be hearing that".

The groaning exacerbated, and there was a humming too, and that whooshing sound the Tardis made because the Doctor was rubbish at brakes. The lights flickered on, and Alex tried to regain his composure, but the Doctor wasn't looking at him. She was staring at the ceiling, which from Alex's vantage point didn't seem terribly interesting.

But the Doctor had that wide, delighted smile she always wore when talking to the Tardis, unless it was having a tantrum, "Oh you clever girl", she said reverently. She looked down at Alex, grinning manically, "She's waking up!"

* * *

**Thanks for reading. Please feel free to leave a review if you enjoyed it.**


	6. Angels in the Dark

I was used to waking up in strange places, gasping in a breath that might be icy cold or hot enough to make my lungs feel like they were cooking or really not have enough oxygen in it for a growing girl. I was used to many things, but I'd always hated the darkness. Perhaps it was that week I'd spent alternating between falling down flights of stairs and into curtains of cobwebs, but I hated it more than anything else in the universe.

But this time I had an agenda, "Doctor", I called, my voice ringing off walls and back to me, unanswered. Well, at least there were walls. I could do worse than having walls. I got my feet underneath me and stood on wobbly knees, my feet prickled fiercely as blood flowed from my hammering heart. I really didn't like the dark.

I stumbled through the darkness, my hands out in front of me, testing the ground before I took a step. My hand touched something cold and I flinched away, stifling a scream. It's always better not to scream when you don't know where you are. I'd learned that the hard way in the form of a rather one-sided brawl on a planet without stars. He'd had a frying pan, I was unarmed. Thankfully, the unpleasant part had been the blow to the head. He'd apologised when I woke up in flickering lamplight, a big brawny man with frightened eyes, and he'd given me food, something I hadn't remembered having in a long time. Later that day I lit up his planet, and brought a race living off venting systems into the light. Later that day he'd been about to kiss me when I disappeared again.

I took a few steps back, but nothing happened. I edged forward again and reached out my hand, feeling cold stone beneath my fingers. It was terribly cold, but firm, not slippery like ice. Definitely stone, and in my experience stone was nothing to be afraid of, unless you were about to hit it at great speed, in which case it was probably best to be a little bit afraid. I pressed my palm against it and began to trace its outline, running my fingers down one stone arm until I reached a hand, and squeezed it out of habit.

I was not expecting the hand to close around mine. I screamed and tried to yank my hand from its grip, but to no avail. My breath wheezed in frightened gasps between my clenched teeth and I felt tears prickling my eyes. "Let me go!" I howled senselessly at the not-quite immobile stone.

Then, miraculously, the grip loosened, and I fell backwards, squeaking desperately. I stared sightlessly at where I thought the statue was, but there was no sound of movement. I rolled onto my hands and knees and began to crawl away, but after a few paces my head struck stone, and I didn't need a diagram to know what it was, but I was calmer now. Perhaps I'd imagined the hand moving. I was, after all, alone in the dark, and I of all people knew the kinds of tricks the mind could play, but all the same, whatever the statues were, they were creepy. I prodded a stone leg experimentally.

"What are you?" I called, almost believing that they might reply, in a voice befitting of stone, cold and hard, utterly unyielding, but the statues said nothing. They were, I reasoned, just statues, and statues didn't move. So I attempted to regain some composure as I stood and dusted off my clothes, hanging more limply on my frame than usual. It wasn't uncommon for time to take its toll on my body, and it generally did so by stealing any fat I managed to pack in when I landed somewhere with food that was even a little bit edible.

"Just statues", I advised myself sternly, "Now I need to try and get out of here before time drags me out again". I recalled vaguely what had happened after the Doctor and his strangely dressed companion had dragged me onto the Tardis, but as to what had happened to them, I didn't know. They could be anywhere. I'd lost them again, but I'd done that before, and this time I didn't cry, I just started walking.

It was icily cold in the stone belly of whatever planet I'd managed to land on, and I gathered my threadbare layers of clothing close, trying to keep in some heat despite the fact that I wasn't generating much of it. In order to stay warm you need calories to burn, and I had nothing all over again.

I sighed, irritated by my own sordid state of affairs, and I felt my breath catch in my throat before I even knew what had startled me. Something was moving quite fast along the passage behind me. I could feel the intent in the air. I didn't bother with a hello; I just ran. The air whipped my hair off my face as I ran blindly and presumably for my life.

A wall grazed my hands and I propelled myself off of it and down anther passage. I knew that any step might plunge me down a colossal flight of stairs, but there was nothing to do but run. There is very often nothing to do but run. And whatever was chasing me didn't sound good.

I saw light up ahead and ran headlong towards it, not caring if it the sunlight would blister my skin or if the temperature dropped by 50 degrees or gravity stopped working. I had to get out. I heaved in my first breath of surface air and the sunlight kissed my blotchy, pale skin. I stopped running and turned to look back into the tunnel. It stood with the sunlight barely touching it, arms outstretched, face twisted grotesquely, positioned as though it had been about to lunge at me.

It was a statue, covered in places with a mossy substance, staring at me with wide grey eyes, not quite emotionless, even frozen. Its arms were outstretched, hands contorted into ragged claws, utterly savage. It didn't move, and I kept watching it, entranced, sucking in shaky breaths, debating the pros and cons of running for my life.

The sound took me by surprise, booming across the planet surface, a sort of screeching, but muted. I knew it immediately. One does not forget a sound like that; it was the Tardis. I spun around and there he was, sauntering out of the doors with a red headed woman, both of them staring quizzically at what looked like a crash site. It was the Doctor, on his eleventh regeneration, I reckoned. I opened my mouth to scream, to make him see me, whatever it took, but before I could utter a sound I felt a freezing hand clamp down on my shoulder and there was a terrible, temporal pulling sensation, and I was gone.

I screamed as my hand struck soft, loamy grass and a hot sun pelted down on my back, and a few birds took off, cawing reproachfully. I looked up and saw the buildings towering above the trees, but I couldn't stop myself from crying, even though I'd been pulled back to my favourite city in the world. There are places throughout space and time you can delude yourself into believing are perfect, but New York had left its scar on my heart, and all I could think about was how lost I was, how close I'd been to the Doctor.

"Amanda!" someone screamed, and I raised my head, and there he was, sprinting across the grass to me, his coat, too heavy for the summer heat, flowing out behind him. I stood slowly and tried not to collapse; because not in a million years had I imagined I'd see him again.

"Nathanial", I whispered the name that had for so long felt like a curse. I'd managed to persuade myself that he was forever lost to me. We'd fallen in love during one blissful summer, much like this one, and then I'd been torn away from him, and him from me, and that had been the end. We had ended; someone had turned out story to the last page, and read to the end.

Yet there he was, closer to me now, and I was still too stunned to move, or wave, never mind run. He hit me with the force of a bullet and we fell back. The collision was rather painful, I imagined I would later reflect, but right then I didn't care, because he was kissing me and I was kissing him and for just one moment everything was perfect.

When he eventually surfaced for air, gasping, his eyes feverish with delight and sorrow, the ghost of the pain he must have felt. "How long has it been?" I managed to ask, because I could see in his eyes that he felt like he'd waited an age for me.

"Five minutes", he gasped, "What happened to you?"

And finally I could tell him all the things I should have told him when we were together. I was so scared, then, that he wouldn't believe me, that he'd finally realise that I was mad, because I undoubtedly was. I'd travelled for a millions years, watched planets burn and empires topple. It was enough to make anyone mad, but that fear had vanished, because I'd so nearly let him lose me, and I didn't know how long I had to tell him,

"Nathaniel", I said, my voice muffled by his lips, "There are a few things I should probably tell you".

* * *

**And so the lost girl is found, but not for long... Feel free to review if you liked it.**


	7. Lost Love

We sat watching the light die, eating chips off a McDonald's tray with napkins spread over it, just like old times. Nathaniel looked a little pale, and the large chunk in our chip supply was mostly down to me. I shivered as I caught sight of a statue looking down on the street. I was afraid to even blink, afraid that if I did I'd open my eyes and it would be gone. Nathaniel had stared at me for a long time after I told him, and then at the sky above us, where we lay on some piece of grass somewhere in New York. The place didn't matter. He did.

"So you could just disappear, at any moment?" He asked, for the third time, tracing the title of his latest battered paperback friend with one long finger. His coat was draped over the back of the plastic chair, grass-stained, torn, as worn and beaten as I probably looked.

"Yes", I said as I extracted another twig from my hair, which I really should have cut a long time ago, but the hair on my head, the ragged split ends; they were the only things I had left of my life before all this.

Nathaniel shook his head slowly, "So you're not just an exchange student from London?" I thought that was pretty evident, but he hadn't learned to stop asking pointless questions, and I loved that about him. I loved that he hadn't seen even a little bit of the world outside his city, I loved that he was enchanted with adventure books even though the very notion of leaving his neat little world terrified him beyond words. Adventure is scary, but it's also worth it.

I grinned my Cheshire cat grin, "No, dear. I'm a time traveller from London". He picked up a chip and nibbled the end, pretending to be distracted, pretending to be thinking deeply and coherently about what everything meant. I could see in his eyes that he was just reeling, crashing through the walls of his own mind in an attempt to understand the impossible.

I reached across the table and took his hand, "I know it's a bit… overwhelming, but you have to know the truth. I thought I'd lost you for so long, and I can't be ripped away from this time again and think that I left you with nothing. At least this way you know, and you can be ready".

He laughed, "Ready", he yanked his hand out of mine, "Ready for you to disappear again? You have no idea what those five minutes felt like. One minute we were walking and the next you were gone!"

People are so selfish. I'm almost inclined to call them humans at this point, we're so different. How can you measure yourself against a people whose existence fizzles out in just a century, when you've lived for longer than anyone could possibly understand? How do you bridge that gap? Even with love like the love I felt for him, I couldn't understand him anymore.

I was angry, and I knew that what I was about to do was stupid, but I started to do it anyway. My chair flew back behind me and someone let out an outraged cry. Nathanial was fuming, I could see that, not because he was really angry at me. No, he was angry with the universe for making his life suddenly and eternally complicated. In that moment he probably wished he'd never met me on that rainy day.

I was surprised I could even keep it together, looking at him now, because time had dropped me back into his life once before this, briefly and tragically. It had been raining that day too, and he was crying, looking down at the street so very far beneath him. I had screamed and slammed my palms against the glass, but he didn't hear me. All he heard was the howling in his ears and a certain, sad urgency to end it all.

I watched him jump, watched him fall and watched him break into a million pieces. The curse of travelling through time is that you get spoilers, and even though then I'd thought that he was dying because he missed me, I knew now that it wasn't that. It was something so much darker, and so much more my fault. He'd seen me again, and I was living that part of his history now, and some part of me wondered if I could change things right now. A part of me wondered if I could stop it.

Time was egging me on, urging me to say the things that I longed to say to him. I wanted to tell him how long I'd waited for him, waited to be thrown back into his life just once more. I wanted him to know how many times I had begged on my knees for just one more day. I wanted to scream that five minutes was nothing compared to the years that had passed since I'd seen him last, and I needed him to feel guilt that had weighed heavy in my heart during all that time. But I knew what that meant now, and I knew that I could stop it. It was a paradox, but paradoxes resolve themselves. The Doctor and I had made the universe acquire that skill.

You see, when you're me and when you're forever, you start to care less and less about the time-space continuum and keeping it happy. Sure, I thought that humans were selfish, but what I was about to do was worse. I would change the future, and I didn't give a damn. Paradoxes resolve themselves. I was counting on it.

I rushed forward and kissed him, fiercely and fully, long enough to leave us both reeling and dizzy when it ended. Already I could feel time twisting around me, that incorrigible force preparing to yank me off of planet Earth. I pressed my lips against his ear and I told him the name of a book I would write for him. I told him where to find it, and I told him I was sorry.

I stepped back and smiled, "Learn to live without me, Nathaniel, learn to grow flowers and paint pictures and write stories. I'm not coming back, but you still have a life. Keep an eye out for my book". Because one day, I knew, I'd be dropped in a position to write him a story, and I'd get someone to publish it, and he would find it, and I would stop one of his futures from happening.

It was all I could give him. I hoped that it would be enough.

* * *

"Doctor!" Alex whirled around, and he could hear them, everywhere, moving in his peripheral vision, but however fast he jerked his head around, however wildly his eyes searched, he could never quite see them. But they were there. "Doctor!" he screamed, his voice breaking. He was cracking, trying not to tremble as they moved and moved around him in jeering circles.

He was standing in what might have been a library, but the spines of the books held only incoherent jumbles of letter, and when he yanked one of the down from the shelf it wouldn't open. Nevertheless he clutched the tome to his chest as he stumbled around corners desperately trying to escape.

The Doctor had been staring up at the ceiling, laughing in delight as the world around them dimmed and the Tardis began to pull them back into reality, but in that moment Alex had felt it; a terrible, gut wrenching tug. He'd woken up on the damp carpet in a place that might have been a library if it had contained anything approaching coherent information, but even the walls seemed to warp around him.

He had called and called, but the Doctor wasn't there. The Doctor was gone, standing alone in the Tardis with her skinny shoulders hunched, having another heated argument with the monster, perhaps, or trying to find him. He felt so lost, so awfully lost and alone. It was all he could do to stop his cries turning into screams and wracking sobs. It was all he could do to keep running.

He felt the book becoming heavier and heavier in his arms, as though resisting him, and eventually it dragged him down onto the carpet. He skinned his elbows as he desperately yanked his hands out from under the book before it smothered them against the floor, squashed them into puddles of blood. His stomach lurched, he retched, but he was empty.

"Help me", he called, rolling onto his side, staring up at the warping letters, twisting and changing before his eyes, utterly nonsensical. "Help me", he whispered again, his ears aching with the sound of scrabbling feet. Whatever was chasing him was getting closer.

He froze as he heard trainers slapping against the carpet, and suddenly someone was yanking his arm. He blinked, his vision still somewhat skewed by the optical shenanigans of the books, but he recognised her well enough. It was the girl they'd been chasing, dressed in clothes that looked vaguely twenty-first century Earth, screaming at him as she tried to drag him to his feet.

Numbly, he stood, and she smacked him, really hard, "Get it together sweater boy!"

He stumbled into a shelf, "What the hell just happened?" he groaned.

The girl grinned, "Little tip", she pointed to the shelves on either side of them "Don't look at the books".

She began to drag him down the aisle, and he tried to keep his eyes fixed on her shoulders, "Why shouldn't I look at the books".

"They're a trap", she told him impatiently, "Honestly, did the Doctor teach you nothing?"

"I don't think that educating me was really her aim", he retorted.

"I suppose that's not really surprising", she said, sighing, "I have met her. She's like a five year old fiddling around with time".

Alex felt somewhat affronted, "I think she's wonderful", he said huffily.

She laughed, "Don't get me wrong. I see no reason why she cannot be both. I suppose it was a little irksome to be treated like the child in the equation when I stepped into her Tardis. Honestly, I've been to Gallifrey. I'm used to seeing Tardises floating around".

Alex almost stopped walking. He missed a step and tripped over his own feet, "You can't have been there. Gallifrey is in the Time Lock or whatever. The Doctor told me. Gallifrey is lost to time".

"I'm the exception to a lot of things", she said evasively.

They walked for a while, and the sounds that had seemed so deafening before faded, "What are those things?" Alex asked, glancing behind him.

"Nothing at all", the girl said, and like all of the time travelling beings he knew, she refused to elaborate.

"Okay", he said impatiently, "But I can _hear_ them".

She turned her head, "I can't".

"Right… so?"

"Must I spell everything out for you?" she asked, rudely. She looked at his face and sobered. Alex didn't doubt he still looked scared, "The books are the predators. They scramble your brain, and their pages hold toxins released on touch, which then render you unconscious, for a very long time. Didn't you wonder why the carpet was damp?"

But Alex wasn't listening anymore. He was staring at his hand, recalling how he had tried to pry the pages apart, how he had held that book close to his chest. The girl continued speaking unabated, "People have died here and rotted away to nothing. The carpet is covered in… for want of a better word… humus. These books were all crafted from living trees. It was genocide. I tried to stop it, but this ruddy inconsistency of mine prevented it, and here they are now, trying to restore the forest. They don't know that they're dead yet. It's quite sad, if you think about it".

She seemed to notice then that Alex's hand had gone limp in hers, and a moment later he collapsed. It didn't take her long to suss it out. She'd noticed the book on the floor beside him, but she'd figured that he'd knocked it over flailing around. He was vaguely attractive, now that she had a chance to look at him, and she had gone, as usual, and made him hate her.

Still, that wasn't important at the moment. She could already feel herself becoming less and less of a fact in the environment. Hopefully the Doctor was on her way, or Alex would be spending a very long time with these books.

Then she heard it, wailing, not far off. The Tardis was materialising. Amanda heaved Alex onto her back and made her way, wobbling beneath his weight, towards the sound. She unfocussed her eyes so that she wouldn't see the dancing letters on the books.

"Alex", the Doctor called, "Where are y- … oh". Amanda turned the corner and saw the Doctor standing quite still, staring up at one of the books.

"Don't look at them", Amanda wheezed, and the Doctor turned her head, her eyes full of sadness.

"Oh, don't worry", she said, "Their mind tricks don't work on me. They don't want my DNA spoiling their mixture". The Doctor ran to Amanda, who lowered him. The Doctor picked him up in her arms, demonstrating an inordinate amount of strength for someone so skinny.

The Doctor looked at Amanda, "I underestimated you", she said, "And I'm sorry about that".

"No worries", Amanda waved dismissively, "It must be nice to know that you're not actually the loneliest being in the universe, though coming second always sucks".

The Doctor frowned, "The thought hadn't crossed my mind".

"Which, considering your wealth of mental acuity, must make it a pretty insignificant to you".

She looked down at Alex in her arms, "I've been very lonely, Amanda – your name is Amanda?"

Amanda nodded. "Well, Amanda, I gave up believing that a long time ago, because of these people, these companions of mine. That creature, the one responsible for everything that has happened to you, said that I drag them around like a dead weight, which just goes to show that it doesn't understand loneliness. Loneliness is dragging people around, but Amanda, these companions of mine have chased me, flagged me down. I said it before a long time ago, 'I never know how, I only know who'". The Doctor smiled as Alex stirred in her arms. She hadn't betrayed the slightest hint of straining with his weight.

Amanda felt time tugging at her again, and evidently the Doctor could feel it too, because she looked up, her eyes suddenly furious, "Stay strong, Amanda, stay alive. I'm going to stop whatever it's doing, and then I'm going to come and get you, wherever and whenever in the wide universe you are. I promise, I will stop this".

The Doctor smiled as Amanda faded. The girl raised one slender arm to wave, and then she was gone. She could hear the books whispering, lathered with the remains of a once great consciousness, pleading with her, asking her to help them, liberate them. The Doctor turned back to the Tardis, standing silent, waiting, still a bit shaken from being taken over.

That creature, that being she had crossed swords with. It was infinitely terrible, infinitely impossible. She'd seen it, felt it invading her mind, pushing the memories to the surface. It was a defence mechanism. She'd thrown herself into the safer memories as it tried to drown her out of her own mind. She'd forgotten about that one. It was a reaction, not a plan, but it hadn't taken long for the Tardis to explain. She'd always wondered just how much it fiddled around with her mind when it got bored.

The door opened when she snapped her fingers and she carried Alex inside, her boots clanging on the steps as she carried him away to his room. It was a nice space, because the Tardis liked him. Simple, but stylish, with the kind of bed that you dream of falling asleep in. She set him down on the duvet and he groaned loudly, starting to wake up now that the Tardis had set to work purging him of the poison.

The Doctor walked back through the corridors, past doors she hadn't opened in centuries, room she was still afraid to wander into. The console glowed contently as she climbed the stairs and began to push buttons. She loved the sensation of flying around in the Tardis, twisting cogs, pulling levers, travelling in any direction, to any time or place, but this time she knew she didn't have a choice.

She set the coordinates and the Tardis immediately began to protest. "I'm sorry, my dear", the Doctor muttered, "I made a promise to a very important person. I have to end this".


	8. Warzone

I found myself ducking and rolling as something whizzed past my ear at a terrific speed, and the ground beneath me shuddered as my back struck the ground. I rolled instinctively back onto my feet and started running, past vague shapes and glittering metal, headlong through the conflict. I didn't stop to breathe. I was dressed in civilian clothes in the middle of a warzone. Now was not the time for chatting. A few hundred metres to my left, a missile smashed into the ground, sending massive cracks through the rock. My feet were torn from under me and I fell, a scream clawing up my throat.

Someone grabbed my arm and I slammed painfully against a shelf of jagged rock. The fissure continued down into darkness. I planted my trainers on the wall and scrambled up, clutching a heavily muscled arm. Before I could sweep my hair out of my eyes I was pulled into a bone-crushing hug, and someone said gruffly in my ear, "Long time, no see, Amanda".

I let out a weary, relieved chuckle, "Oh Bones! I've missed you!" It took me a moment to remember the right language. He brushed my hair back off my face with one giant hand and cupped my jaw almost tenderly, smiling, but his eyes were searching my skin for blemishes, microscopic needles embedded into the skin from terrabombs (which were almost undetectable explosions that smothered the victim in miniscule bots which then carefully deconstruct whatever flesh they touch). He completely ignored another missile as it crashed down in the distance, scattering troops in all directions, wounding some, swallowing others, like it had been about to swallow me. Satisfied with my physical wellbeing, he clapped me on the shoulder hard enough to make my knees buckle.

I grinned ruefully, "That's another one of my nine lives I owe you", I said.

Bones was a member of a rebel Sontaran group, set on defying the warlike constitution the Sontaran were held by. It was treason, and they were being chased all over the universe for it, but their numbers were growing, or at least they had been when I fought with him last. They were strictly against war, but you can't exactly hold a peaceful protest against sacred Sontaran doctrines. There were entire generations of Sontaran now who had grown up in a peaceful base hidden in the cosmos. It was the most dramatic culture change I'd ever seen, in all my long years, which is why I supported it the last time.

"How long has it been?" I asked airily.

Bones scrutinised me for a moment, "Five years". He glanced over his shoulder at the Sontaran fighting one another, "But we'd better continue this conversation elsewhere. I have found my desire to be blow to a million pieces far diminished over the past few years".

We ran to a large bunker set into the planet surface, battered by missiles but holding strong. Innovation was going a long way to helping the free Sontaran win the war against their indoctrinated brothers. It didn't seem to bother Bones: killing members of his own species, but then humans had never been too bothered when they killed other humans. In any case, Sontaran from his generation hadn't really been brought up to care for one other beyond the cultish military sense of unity that they found necessary to fuel their endless wars.

He pulled open the door and ushered me inside. The room held only a few of the cleverest Sontaran, controlling drones in the air, deciding which ships to attack, where to deploy troops, but in a calculated way that was bewildering to their enemies. The Sontaran had always relied on brute strength and manipulation, not tactical superiority, to win wars for them.

Bones sat down heavily and regarded me with veiled suspicion, "Last I checked you'd hijacked one of my best ships and set off into the stars". I flushed, recalling that particular incident. Bones glared at my chagrin, "What brought you back into my warzone?"

"Necessity", I replied, "I need firepower".

"And you think I owe you that?"

I raised an eyebrow and sat back in my chair, flinging one leg over the other, "Yes I do".

Bones continued to glare for a few moments, but I didn't waver, and eventually he rolled his eyes, "I suppose you're right", he said reluctantly, "What do you need?"

"Bullets", I said, "And lots of them".

He nodded, "Those I have".

I handed him a slip of paper, stowed in my sock, which was spattered with blood and dust from the battleground outside. Bones read the co-ordinates and shouted at the techies to check it out. We exchanged glares as the young Sontaran keyed in the numbers. The image that showed up on screen was a patch of empty space. It was close enough to a few stars, but it was nothing special on a universal scale. Bones looked at me for clarification, and I nodded, "That's the place".

He raised his lumpy excuse for an eyebrow, "I don't see anything there I can throw a grenade at", he said grumpily. I stood and moved over to the computer. The techie clutched his seat possessively, but Bones indicated for him to move, "But do throw her out if she starts doing something I wouldn't approve of", he added.

My fingers skimmed over the keyboard and I entered the correct algorithm, something that had cost me a lot to get my hands on. An image flickered onto the screen. The techie jumped a little bit, clearly not the blood and guts kind of Sontaran, when he saw the image on the screen. Taking note of his reaction, Bones stomped over and brushed him aside, staring at the gaping blackness, surrounded by tendrils of ghostly fire, which sat centre screen.

Yawning wide, it sent a shiver down my spine too, and I'd seen it before. Bones' lip twitched, but he otherwise betrayed no emotion, "I've never wasted bullets shooting at a black hole before", he grumbled.

"It isn't a black hole", I said.

He snapped his lumpy brown head around to face me, "Nonsense", he snarled.

I rolled my eyes. There was still old Sontaran blood in him, still a root of ignorance in his careful mind, but he was a friend, so I just kept staring at him, and eventually he sighed loudly, "Pray tell me what it is then".

"It's a prison", I said, "The most effective prison in the universe. People used to think that it was the Pandorica, but it never was. The Time Lords hid this in a deserted back end of the universe when they were still alive. It holds the most feared being in the universe, the real monster behind all those Gallifreyan ghost stories. It used to rip holes in the universe for fun, and then the Time Lords stopped it, and imprisoned it in there. It's a complicated construction, a feat of temporal magic only the Time Lords could ever hope to achieve. Technically, everything inside that hole doesn't exist, but once you're inside the hole, everything outside of it doesn't exist". Bones nodded totally without comprehending, "Tardises can get in and out of it, which explains why the Doctor was able to escape, and if I'm right, he's going back in to break whatever hold that creature has on me".

"What hold?" Bones demanded, looking me up and down almost fearfully, as though I might be carrying some horrific disease.

I winced, "I've been gone for five years, yes?"

"That's what I said", Bones replied impatiently.

"But the thing is, Bones, I haven't seen you in two hundred years. That's how long it's been for me. I didn't just drive away, I was pulled out of that ship and into another time, into hundreds of other times, and I don't stay long. I'm being dragged through time. I am very, very old, older than you can imagine". Bones looked as though he had a stomach ache, trying to follow what I was saying. Cleverness wasn't really his area.

But he surprised me by coming up with a moderately clever question, "So what's the problem with you being dragged through time?" He cleared his throat loudly at the end and seemed startled by his own wit. Asking an intelligent question was a considerable achievement for a Sontaran.

"Time travel is damage", I explained, "I'm tearing apart the universe when I'm dragged through it. I shouldn't be here, and there's no Tardis to protect me from hurting the universe when I time travel". It was as close as I had come to understanding it all.

Bones pointed at the screen, "Bullets there, then, yes?"

I nodded, and then smiled at him, "I asked you last time if you could put out the feelers for that thing?"

He thought for a moment, and then smiled, "Oh yes! That thing! I got you one, with great difficulty, I might add". He clicked his fingers and a Sontaran came running. He grumbled a few quick instructions and the soldier went running.

Bones didn't bother with small talk as we waited. He glared fixedly at the wall over my shoulder, and my stomach was twisting with nerves at what I was about to try and do, so I didn't try to initiate conversation. The soldier returned a few minutes later, holding a small box, which he passed without a word to Bones.

He handed it to me and I opened it with shaking hands. It lay inside on a red velvet cushion, the way it had been bought, no doubt. Bones didn't strike me as the red velvet type. I yanked it out and dropped the box onto a table. Fixed around my wrist, it made me feel secure for the first time in an almost literal forever. It was a vortex manipulator, a rudimentary time travelling device given to Time Agents and frequently stolen from them.

I keyed in the co-ordinates, my fingers shaking a little. Bones observed my actions curiously, and flinched when I hugged him, not just a sweaty battle hug, protocol to check for wounds while exposing the smallest target possible to the enemy, but a real hug, gentle and sincere. He stepped back awkwardly when I pulled away and gave me a salute.

I smiled, "See you soon", I said as jauntily as I could, and pressed the button.

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**Thank you for reading. Don't forget to leave a review!**


	9. The Garden in Hell

Alex jolted awake, breathing heavily in the chilly air. He frowned, ran his fingers through his hair, checking that everything was where it usually sat, unchanging. His eyes drifted over to the open wardrobe, and the brightly coloured sweaters beaming out at him. He was wearing the black shirt he'd had under the jumper he'd ruined with tea, and it was thick with greenish moisture and dust. It was green with people.

His stomach lurched and he tore it off, flung it across the room, shuddering as the sheets stuck to his sticky skin, but as he was about to stumble along the hall to find a shower, urgency caught up to him. "Doctor", he called, snatching a clean t-shirt off a hanger and running down the hall, the soles of his shoes squelching, thick with human humus. The Doctor's merry humming floated, amplified as the Tardis walls shifted. It liked Alex. It always had. He was safe, as normal as normal got. No hidden paradoxes, just a boy with a poorer dress sense than even the Doctor. The Tardis liked that.

Alex could only imagine what the Doctor had subjected it to before. He'd felt its distaste, pungent, when they dragged Amanda on board. He walked into the console room and the Doctor smiled widely when she caught sight of him. "Did you have a good sleep?" she asked shrilly, fiddling with cogs.

Ignoring the question, Alex climbed the steps, running his fingers along the railing, tenderly, apologising, he thought, for the shock they'd given it earlier. The Doctor probably hadn't thought to say sorry, or didn't need to, but the Tardis would enjoy being acknowledged.

It hummed pleasantly as Alex joined the Doctor at the console. He glared uncomprehending at the screen, hoping it might display their location, a sneak peak of whatever barren and unfriendly environment they were about to step onto. The Doctor was angry; Alex could see it in the set of her shoulders, the arch of her jaw, the way her eyebrows knotted. She pranced around the Tardis, but it seemed contrived, more of a device not to stand still than any real zeal for where they were headed.

Still, he reasoned, it could hardly get any worse than that library, though the Doctor had a knack for surprising him. He was almost afraid to ask, but he did anyway, "Where are we?"

She looked at him and grinned, but then seemed to realise how utterly fake it was, and her face drooped. She straightened her back and said quite solemnly, "We're in the best prison in the universe". She selected an umbrella from the stand beside the door and gazed back into the Tardis, as though uttering a silent prayer that she would see it again.

The latest incarnation of the console room was beautiful; an echo of a potting shed lay about it. There were benches covered in fragments of red ceramics and a musty smell in the air. The console was glowing soundly in the centre of it all. The space was bright, old fashioned; not at all what Alex suspected was once a spick space, all grey metal and functionality, symmetrically beautiful. The Tardis now was wild, like a town garden overgrown with wildflowers, and occasional pot of struggling flowers interspersed through it in an attempt to tame the small wilderness.

"I always bring an umbrella when I go out", she jabbed the air in front of the faded blue doors, "They're very useful things".

Alex rolled his eyes and followed as she swung the doors open, and he almost allowed relief to punctuate the thumping beats of his heart as light streamed in and a few leaves skittered across the threshold, no doubt immediately set upon by the tiny storm of nanobots the Doctor had manufactured to investigate new organic matter brought onto the Tardis after that incident last year when the Tardis got a cold. That had been worse week of everyone's life: literally. Think of the worse week of your life; that was the Tardis' fault, because it got infected by some sort of mechanical bacteria. The engines wheezed and great gusts of foul air blew along the corridors for days on end and the Tardis wilfully released clouds of sparkling, razor sharp dust in the midst of a fever that relieved it of all its senses.

The Doctor and Alex spent that week in Rome while the Doctor attempted to pinpoint which week in her long life had actually been the worst. She hadn't settled on an answer yet. He stepped over the leaves and into a patch of arid air that penetrated his lungs cruelly when he sucked in a breath. He blinked against the sunlight and the Doctor threw up the umbrella to shield herself from the glare. She peeked around the side and raised her eyebrows, not in concern; she looked mildly impressed. "I don't imagine the Time Lord made it this pleasant", she murmured, and Alex blinked for a few moments before forcing his eyes to focus on the scene before him.

A garden stretched out below them from where they stood on a small hill. It wasn't the sort of garden you find in a suburban back garden, with a meagre attempt made at cultivating a flowerbed or two. No, this was a buzzing, rustling mass of trees and flowers, ponds and fountains, and the air pressed down heavily onto all of it and only buzzing, rustling and merry chirping rose above the oppressive silence.

"Where are we?" Alex asked, and the Doctor looked at him in surprise.

"Did I not tell you?" He shook his head. She frowned, "Right, must have been… self-defence". She balanced daintily on one foot, and Alex noticed for the first time that she had changed into a fitted dress that fell below her calves, no doubt from some formal dinner on a planet where anything above the knee was treated with horror. She looked surprisingly comfortable in it, and curvy.

With her head cocked guiltily to the side, she told him where they were, "Do you remember that place where we were, with the evil monster thing and that long chat. We were propelled into my mind and then you were spirited off to that library for no apparent reason other than to spite me?" Alex opened his mouth, but she didn't wait for a response, "So, yeah, this is the place where the creepy monster which you know nothing at all about, but who still tried to kill you horribly, lives".

Alex didn't bother looked surprised. He gestured to the garden, "It's a nice place for a monster to hide".

The Doctor shrugged, "Monsters like pretty things too, and don't worry, this is basically the parlour. The décor will probably get edgier the further into the bowels we wander".

"Ah", Alex said, "So you're planning on bowel-wandering then?"

The Doctor made a face, "Let's uninvent that phrase, shall we?"

"Probably best", Alex agreed.

She held out her hand to him, and he took it without thinking, just as he had the first time they met. The Doctor pulled him forward, perilously close to tripping over her own feet already. They moved through rows of flowers boasting bright reds and flickering oranges, melancholy blues and deep-sea black. There were traces of scuff marks in the dust, where others had walked, or perhaps just one person, trawling through the garden with measured carelessness, wending back and forth, sprinkling water where it was needed, waving aside plump bees, snatching at fat beetles and generally exhibiting all the love a gardener has.

"I still haven't told you what this thing is", the Doctor decided suddenly, almost halting.

"You haven't, and it's very confusing", Alex told her.

She nodded slowly, resigned to telling a difficult story, "Time Lords were charged with taking care of time, fixing when things went wrong, but we didn't interfere, like I do. Not back then. It wasn't permitted. People did it anyway, rebels flew around breaking all the laws because it was the right thing to do, and they were reprimanded. Time has enemies, of course, beings who delight in shredding holes in the paper-thin barriers that stand between one event and its contradiction. It's complicated stuff, but one could do great damage to events if one so desired.

"This creature – this monster – was one such perpetrator of these crimes, the worst, infamous, a figment of scary bed time stories that parents tended to tell their Gallifreyan children, when they could. There are stories about this monster, this wilful destroyer of time. You know from travelling with me, and my dropped hints, that time travel is damage. The Tardis protects the universe as she flies through it, but this monster could tear great lengths of time out of the universe, and from beyond our universe, beyond our existence, it has been manipulating Amanda, using her to tear great swathes through the order of events".

The Doctor shrugged, "I don't know how such a thing was done, but I suspect outside fraternisation, but from whom I cannot imagine. You need a Tardis to get into this prison, and the thought of some malignant enemy out there, armed with a Tardis and all the tools of the Time Lords, is frightening. Perhaps it is even more frightening than this monster", she waved one hand from side to side, "I won't know until I fall right into the middle of it, precisely when it's too late to make any strategic preparations. So it goes".

She began to pull Alex along again, and he stared at her back, transfixed by the rays of sunlight dancing on the fabric of her dress. He looked around him, at the stunning, almost gaudy, beauty of his surroundings. A creature that gleefully tore holes in the universe had created this shrine to order, the wild sort that growth constitutes, but nonetheless an orderly function of life-cycles. He'd sensed it, as it tore into his mind planting ideas, he knew, that he had not yet realised. He has sensed a love of chaos but also a desire for order within the process of creating chaos. He recalled the careful way it had planted those mad notions, those unbelievable, but still incoherent, stories into his mind. They were crouched in the depths of his subconscious, awaiting the call to arms, a deadly, destructive order applied to their revelation, one by one breaking the barriers of his trust in the Doctor.

Together the Doctor and her companion tore through the orderly lines of boisterous life, toward a darker horizon that lay somewhere above the trees, waiting for them.

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**Thank your for reading, and please don't forget to leave a review. It helps me to know whether or not I should bother to continue writing.**

**If you have any questions, because this plot is a bit wibbly-wobbly, don't hesitate to ask!**


	10. The Lonely Lord

_A/N: This may end up being my last chapter, because I'm not convinced that anyone at all is reading this, and I don't want to spend my time and energy creating something that no one is enjoying. _

_If you do want to see this continued, just drop me a review. It won't take long, just let me know that you're interested in the story, because there are other ideas in my head yearning to be written down, and I don't want to push them aside in favor of something that isn't going anywhere. _

_So, review :) Please do. I love this story and I want to continue it, but I do need an expression of interest._

_For the meantime anyway,_

_Enjoy!_

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The Lonely Lord waited in the dark.

His eyes shone in the occasional penetrating light.

Suspended in the feral darkness of his will.

He could hear them coming, sliding through the bright rows of that one small part of him that delighted in beauty, and once or twice he remembers walking through it, leisurely, going about the motions of care.

Shivers arched his spine and he lowered himself, slowly, gradually, there was no rush. He had been planning for so long. Not even the Doctor could escape this labyrinth, so much greater and lonelier than his paltry universe, his wayward existence beyond the boundaries of what had ever felt or been real to The Lonely Lord.

Waiting is an art, a slow and inconsiderate preparation for that which may never come, but the Doctor was with him now, in him. Not just a story, a fact, and the spinning girl would be at last laid to rest. She would not be eaten. She was precious to him. Through her he had seen the universe beyond, though he could hardly believe it. He had seen the Doctor's world, and the Doctor had come crawling to him.

The Lonely Lord waited in the dark.

But not for much longer.


	11. Tripping Down Memory Lane

**So I'm continuing this at the request of only-the-sassiest, which is great, because by brain has plagued me with ideas for this and attempting to beat my brain into creative submission is a pretty pointless exercise. This is sort of fluffy, I think. So enjoy!**

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"You don't talk much about the others", Alex noted as the Doctor tripped over a potted plant, her umbrella whizzing dangerously through the air, raising the ire of several animated vines, who squirted her with a foul-smelling paste that hung like great cobwebs to her arm as she turned to regard them in disgust. She stuck out her tongue and shrugged out of her coat, flinging it into the shrubbery, "Alright then, you have it!"

The plants did not reply, but moments later a collection of weeds had mysteriously sprouted through the fabric and the soil began to bulge as the coat was sucked in. Alex stared at it in mild horror. The Doctor waved her hand, "Do not go near that. It looks a bit dangerous".

"Thanks for the warning", he said, and they kept their eyes fixed on the curiously animate plants, which seemed to scrutinise them as they hurried out of sight. They entered a darker section of the garden, with a wooden frame built over the passage, riddled with plants that blocked out the sunlight almost entirely. The sunlight threw shards of light onto the Doctor's hair, which shone golden, almost sparkling. Sometimes Alex forgot that the Doctor really was beautiful, with all the running and having disgusting things thrown at them the whole time, he rarely had a moment to notice. He tried not to stare as she walked in front of him, rake thin with that fearsome metabolism, but strong. Alex had seen her crust stones to dust in her hands.

He always wondered what she would be like in a fight, if she ever threw punches, if the extent of her fury was not to execute a stunning plan. Where would the universe be if the Doctor really fought with elbows and knuckles and guns? Nowhere pleasant, he knew that much.

"You never answered my question", he reminded her and watched as she shrugged her shoulders uncomfortably, twiddling her sonic back and forth across the fingers of one hand.

She didn't speak for a moment, and when she did her voice sounded hoarse, "I know", she replied.

He didn't press her for an answer, but after a few hundred metres she supplied it of her own volition, "I used to be very good at talking about them, really good. I used to tell stories about the people I had lost, because I knew that they deserved that. I used to draw my strength from them, because they were strong. River and Amy and Rory, so, so strong, but then… I lost someone, and I can't bear to even speak about it".

"Who was she?" Alex asked, unapologetic. There are some things you shouldn't keep locked up in your heart, and even though the Doctor had two, that wasn't enough space for half her secrets and private taboo subjects. So he asked the question even though she didn't want him to.

The Doctor stopped walking and leaned against the edge of a raised flower bed, and the wood crumbled a little beneath her, but the plants remained stationary, so Alex perched beside her and watched a million different emotions play across her face, an epic battle of what she wanted to tell him and what she knew she could never tell anyone.

"Her name was Clara", she said, gazing at the thick growth above their heads with a strange smile, "You know I never believed in all that 'soul mate' business. It's a big universe. You love a lot of people when you walk through it like I do, and I loved her. She was perfect, Alex, she was just so wonderful, so beautiful, and she saved me a thousand times over. She saved all my lives.

Did I ever tell you what happened at Trenzalore? It's where I'm buried, and there was the great big scar of all the damage I'd done, because like I said time travel is damage, and however much you minimize it, there's always something. There was this creature, this being; the Great Intelligence. I'd met it before, the second time I met Clara. Oh dear, this is a very long story, but I'll tell it. You need to know before we go in there. I don't know what that creature planted inside your head, but it is nothing good". The Doctor looked at Alex then, firmly, "There's something you need to know. I've lived a long life, a good life, but there have been dark times. I've killed people, entire races, and manipulated others into dying and killing for me. It has put something into your head, I imagine, that will make you distrust me, maybe hate me, and I wouldn't blame you. Some of the things I've done…"

She shook her head, "But I should start from the beginning".

And she did, and Alex listened. She told him the story of Rose Tyler, the bad wolf, and Martha Jones, the woman who walked the earth. Donna Noble, the most important person in the universe, the woman who had to forget. Captain Jack Harkness, who lived as close to forever as you could, the man who just wouldn't die. Mickey Smith, who grew so strong so quickly and was as brave as any of them. Sarah-Jane, who he met in a school, getting into trouble just like he'd taught her, and trusty K-9, who she brought back to live, giving Sarah something even if the universe was no longer an option.

Amy Pond, the girl who waited, and Rory Williams, the boy who waited like ten times longer. They were so in love, she said, grinning, leaning back and almost getting swallowed by the plants, who unexpectedly developed an interest in her.

Shoving them away, she told him about River Song, the Doctor's wife, who always called her sweetie and made her do embarrassing things like kisses. Then came Clara, first a Dalek in the Dalek Asylum, Clara Oswin Oswald, the total screaming genius. She found her again in Victorian London, after Amy and Rory left her forever, and she lived in the clouds with Strax and Madam Vastra and Jenny keeping her secrets.

They were great, those three. Strax was a Sontaran, which, she told Alex, are basically potatoes with legs, and this with a mischievous grin. Madam Vastra and Jenny were brilliant, a fighting detective duo, and Jenny always called Vastra ma'am. She never thought to ask why.

Clara was there too, but she didn't know it was the girl from the Dalek Asylum then. She'd never seen Oswin's face, but she found herself enthralled by this clever, sparkling girl, who said odd things like, "It's smaller on the outside".

"What a way of looking at things she had", the Doctor mused. Then she sobered, recounting how Clara had fallen to her death, but the Doctor knew that it wasn't a coincidence that her voice felt so familiar, and she zipped forward in time to reclaim this girl who was just as lost as Amanda Grey. She told the whole long story, all of the long stories, until the garden grew dark and she began to shiver without her coat. The stars came out. Well, some stars, the Doctor amended, "Not the real ones. Just pretenders, little farcical lights hanging not so very far above our heads, imitating something precious belonging to our universe".

They began walking again, treading carefully as the more dangerous plants reared their heads in the dusk and snapped at their heels. Alex had a brief wrestling match with a very enthusiastic Christmas tree before the Doctor pulled him away and together they ran, breath fogging in the chill, towards a wall of darkness that seemed like the end of it all, but wasn't.

It was just the beginning.

"Do you think we're going to get out of here alive?" Alex wondered as they approached the last few rows of plants, these creatures hunched, twisted by the greyness that fell over them. It became difficult to breath, and Alex had to work his lungs hard to keep up with the Doctor's stride.

She made a face, "Probably… maybe… possibly… hopefully?"

Alex patted her shoulder, "Very comforting".

She beamed, "I try".

She reached out for his hand and he linked his fingers into hers, and for a moment they shared a look that was half fear, half excitement. As it should be.

And then they stepped out of the light.


	12. Singing in the Tardis

**Thank you to themadmanhopes and only-the-sassiest for your support. I adore writing this and you've given me an excuse to keep going with it. Thank you! Fish fingers and custard for all.**

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When she stepped inside there was a garden, and the sun was falling down. It hovered just above the ground, distant, and when its light touched her she shivered. The warmth felt cold on her skin. In the distance, she could make out one gangly figure and one sweater wearing idiot, walking into what seemed like a gaping hole in the side of reality. Not much out of the ordinary there, but Amanda had other things to attend to.

She raised an arm to shield her eyes and found the Tardis, standing quite still, humming discontentedly. Stumbling over rocks, she traversed the stony crest of a hill, behind which darkness stretched out, a debatable infinity of nothing. "What have you done Doctor?" she muttered as she reached the blue box, and it made a sound that reminded her of the way the Babylonians used to purr as they slept, deep and throaty.

"What's the matter with you?" she found herself muttering, strangely concerned. She passed the palm of one hand over the rough wooden surface and the doors popped gently open. She peered into the glowing console room, slightly different than she remembered, messier. She stepped inside the doors shut behind her. A spike of panic plunged through her, somewhat disproportionate, she thought. She knew without tugging that the doors were stuck fast.

The Tardis needed her.

She trailed up a winding stair to the humming core. It seemed odd to her, from a defensive perspective, to keep such a valuable aspect of the machine so close to the entrance, but she didn't imagine that the Doctor designed anything with defensive precautions in mind. It smelled a little like a shed, not quite musty, but that pleasant grainy smell you get from tons of cobwebs and wood that's seen a lot of rain. There was a dash of that peculiar odour of freshly dug soil when it's just a little bit damp.

It smelled alive, bursting with odd little flowers and in the centre of all the oddities stood a technological masterpiece. The Tardis was a Caravaggio among the finger paintings the rest of the universe could create. It was beautiful. Amanda's long life had made her a minor expert in virtually everything, so she navigated the buttons, levers, knobs and a rather bizarre collection of pedals that adorned the console with relative ease. The Tardis responded to her touch, and the darker corners lit up.

It was curiously silent inside the Tardis, apart from the occasional echo of something in the reams of corridors and rooms that riddled it. Amanda could finally breathe; the constant tugging in her stomach that usually accompanied her was gone. She was at the end. She could feel it. Whatever horrible, wonderful journey she'd been on, through space and time, was coming to an end. She was struck by an odd sense of absence. You spend long enough being tortured you can grow to love it, because torture isn't just pain, torture is hope, and hope is dangerous. Hope is the greatest weapon in the universe. It can create and destroy almost all at once.

"Hope is the thing with feathers," she muttered, "That perches in the soul. And sings the tune without the words and never stops at all." As though in response to her words, she heard birdsong, floating down one of the corridors leading off from the Tardis console room, and though she attempted to continue programming the Tardis, the levers were stuck fast. It wanted her to follow the singing.

"Alright," she said, "A treasure hunt then; a treasure hunt through the greatest machine in the universe." She walked into the hall, peering along its length, and saw nothing but uniform walls stretching until a corner broke her line of sight. She took a deep breath and began to walk. She kept one hand on the wall, two fingers trailing over almost undetectable dents and bumps in the wall. Like the Doctor, the Tardis couldn't quite hide its scars.

She walked for an age, though the music never seemed to grow closer. It proved incredibly difficult to resist investigating every room she walked past. She wondered what they might contain. Remnants of the Doctor's lost faces and lost friends, or something darker, or brighter? In a machine like the Tardis, the possibilities were literally endless.

It led her gently, with slight urges whenever she halted. Certain passages seemed to echo the birdsong more clearly than others, and she followed them, obedient. What a strange creature, this no-quite-alive machine, capable of going anywhere at all, yet it allows the Doctor to decide where it goes. Why? With that much power, it didn't add up. What did the Doctor provide it with? She was fairly certain that it didn't actually need a huge amount of maintenance. The lore she had collected told her that it could generate new environments, so why allow a Time Lord to fly you, park you, and swagger off into the sunset? Where was the logic in that for a machine so powerful?

"What are you?" she whispered, and the birdsong suddenly became almost deafening. It was coming from behind one of doors along the passage she stood in. They were all plain, unassuming, an amalgamation of wood and metal and organic matter. She could see the skeleton of a daisy outlined in one of them. What room was dissolved and reformed to generate this? A greenhouse? That seemed like something the Doctor might have, an environment where she could simply foster life without the burden of destroying it. It seemed to appeal to her apparent urge to control everything.

It didn't surprise Amanda that the Doctor felt those urges. The universe must seem like a great tree to be cultivated to one who could travel to each and every branch at each and every stage of this great tree's growth.

She turned slowly to regard the door with the daisy set into it, a shadow against the creamy white, she could feel the sound humming across its face, and the handle made her body tremble when she touched it. She twisted the knob and pulled it open, and the noise ceased suddenly. A figure stood, indistinct, inside, framed in weak light that lit up one corner of the room, in which a rather large pile of books stood balanced precariously beside a bed, strewn with brightly coloured blankets and pieces of paper and metal. Upon seeing her, the figure seemed to blur, and a moment later someone collided with her, painfully hard.

A warm body pressed up against hers, and she could make out a face, but she could hardly believe what she was seeing. "Doctor?" she stuttered, "but I thought you were, I _saw_ you…"

The Doctor smiled: a wide, mad smile that belonged to fairy tale wizards and cryptic cats, "Things got a little complicated," she said, "but I'm so happy to see you!" and Amanda felt her ribs hang on the verge of cracking as the Doctor's steely arms tightened around her. For a Lady of Time she was almost excessively touchy-feely.

"Oh," the Doctor exclaimed, "Thank you also, my dear". This she directed at the ceiling, and the Tardis hummed appreciatively before reverting back to stony silence.

The Doctor waved at absolutely nothing and set off down the hall, leaving Amanda standing with her arms still slightly extended, looking like a complete idiot. "Wait," she called, jogging to catch up with the Doctor's long stride, "You haven't told me why I just found you in that room when I just watched you walk into that… tunnel thing."

"I haven't, have I?" the Doctor said merrily, though she made no indication that she was about to elaborate.

Amanda raised an eyebrow, "Er… will you?"

"Oh certainly", the Doctor replied enthusiastically, "But I hate telling a good story twice, and Alex should be here in…" she glanced at her watch, deemed it very out of battery, and shrugged, "Five minutes?" she ventured.

Amanda's head hurt, but then, when you place yourself within 100 years of the Doctor, you sort of have to expect that.


	13. Moral Ambiguity

**I really don't know what this is. Every so often I realise that I actually have to explain what I'm doing at some point so it becomes a massive dialogue heavy thing that takes ages to write and then days of procrastinating because I want to write something better but... c'est impossible! Malheureusement. So I'm going to go off now and write something half decent. This is important though. Feel free to tell me how stupid I've been in a review. I'm sure that'd make me feel loads better. A good long lecture. **

**Enjoy...**

* * *

"Hi", he said, as she stepped into the circle of light that threw shadows onto the domed walls, her old eyes scanning the room, searching in the darkness for him. He stood watching her, whirling about in that ungainly fashion. Her regenerations had tuned her bean-pole thin, tallish, and distinctly human.

Impressive was not the first word that would pop into anyone's mind upon seeing her. The Lonely Lord smiled and wondered if The Doctor had let her mask become her face. "It's been a long time", he told her.

"Has it?" she said, barely paying attention to her words.

"We were children. You won't remember. That's sort of the point", he stood motionless as he spoke, standing absolutely still. There was no passion in his voice; he'd rehearsed for this a billion times. "I remember though," he said, "just me, there's no one else left now, is there? You murdered them all. I always thought you had the makings of genocide in you. I've heard the stories, wild rumours, most of them, about you and the things you've done, the peoples you've slaughtered trying to be the good guy. Who would've thought that the nonsense word you created to define yourself would become an actual term in so many languages, all meaning the same thing?"

The Lonely Lord watched her face as he spoke, and the nervous twitches which betrayed the emotions spinning through her mind. Hope, confusion, anger, agony, loss, grief and more anger, emotions as plain as a toddler's to his eyes. He searched for that familiar undercurrent, that steely, brooding potential that the Doctor used to carry around in fraying pockets.

Potential energy is a fascinating thing, infinite possibility and impossibility all crammed into the slight tilt of a shoe as it casts a shadow over the pavement, and dim in the background, the oily black machine racing over cracked asphalt and that moment of indecision before they take the step and the impact flings them out of existence.

Bam. Dead. The universe being the universe.

A sliver of ice climbed like a cold, slimy hand along his spine as her eyes met his, by chance, as she scanned the darkness. He could see it in her eyes; the limitless potentials that dwelt within every cell of her body, all the chain reactions that set off chain reaction that set off chain reaction that made her endless. Older than the universe. Those eyes had watched as it began and as it ended. The power of the Time Lords to feel the turn of the universe, constrained within her gangly, almost teenage body, like a bomb inside a teddy bear.

"Doctor," he said with relish, "To the universe it means healer, medic, wise-man; there are plenty of adjectives, but they're all lies, aren't they? Did you ever suspect that your name would become the shivers that crawl along spines, the wrenching in guts, the tears that glimmer in eyes? Did you ever imagine that just mentioning your name could set the universe on fire?"

The Doctor shook her head, "You're wrong. Maybe once that might have been true, but I fixed it. I'm no one now. Just a traveller."

He sniggered, "You never were tremendously ambitious, Doctor. You have the faith of the universe in your hands and you chose to just travel. How _Time Lord_ of you."

"I am nothing like them," she growled.

"You never thought so," The Lonely Lord said, "You thought of them as stuffy old men who stood like great enigmas over the universe. You always wanted to be stuck in the crowd, getting into trouble, trekking across frozen moons and drifting too close to supernovas. We used to laugh at the Time Lords and their laws as we lay on the rooftops of alien worlds sipping wine from the other end of the universe pretending that the clouds above our heads were full of fairy tales instead of acid rain. We were special, willing to break the rules for the good of the many, and the rest of the lot sat around debating galactic law, but we were blind, and they were far more dangerous than we ever imagined."

Her eyes roamed through the dark for him, wide, frightened now. That was rather the point, but he couldn't lay claim to any pleasure at scaring her. It was necessary, not ideal. He couldn't shake that frustrating loyalty he felt. The Doctor inspires that sort of dedication. He didn't know how, or why, that boy he'd known on Gallifrey had such power from the moment he first drew breath, and all the times he'd stopped since then, but it was dangerous.

The Lonely Lord looked sideways at her. It was odd, trying to imagine that child inside of her. That boy with all the potential in the universe on his shoulders and the power to wield every loyalty, ensnare every soul to his service. It was an ignorant power, but he could feel it in her, even now, when she seemed so much older and sadder and sillier, as though everything she'd once pretended to be fuelled her now, like battery acid leaking over her features, mottling the flesh until she became a clown, a parody of the person he'd once know, but her eyes betrayed her. She could smile all she wanted, but he could see her soul. It was a black, gulping, pox-ridden thing, shuddering inside her skeleton like the horrors inside Pandora's box.

He was old too, of course, but when you wait in the dark for as long as he had, it turns you the kind of mad that doesn't prance about in silly clothes wielding umbrellas, it turns you the kind of mad that wants to consume everything in existence because it's too bright for your eyes.

"If we were so close," the Doctor snarled, conjuring her courage, "Then why don't I remember you? As I told your little pet, my memory is anything but selective."

The Lonely Lord laughed, "Well that's the thing, Doctor, the Time Lords hid things from us. Old men have many secrets, and their little secret put me here, in my own little universe, a prison that can barely exist. It takes a Tardis to navigate the impossibilities that govern the not-quite-existence of my little patch of hell."

"What are you talking about?" she asked, ceasing her spinning, setting the umbrella down firmly on the tiles. She faced away from him, but spoke with conviction to the wall, "I don't know what you think we did, but I have a… decent enough memory, and I'm here for just one thing."

The Lonely Lord giggled. It was a horrid sound that evoked an almost imperceptible shiver from the Doctor. Her jaw flexed, and her eyes flickered in alarm before returning to the emptiness where they had formerly rested, "Let her go," she said slowly. It was a menacing look, he imagined, but as he ran his eyes along her frail form, he knew that she was no more willing to resort to violence than she had been all those years ago. Give everyone a chance, isn't that right Doctor? Even if it kills you.

"Don't be so incurious," he admonished.

"I'll be curious when you let her go," the Doctor said levelly. The Lonely Lord sighed dramatically. Still so stubborn.

"Amanda Grey," he tasted her name like a fine wine, "No thanks, she belongs to me now."

She turned then, and looked right into his eyes. The Lonely Lord took an involuntary step back as she scrutinised him. Her gaze burned a hole right through him. He shivered. After all these years, she could take him apart with a glance. The Time Lords used to pity her and her quest to fix the universe, but it made her so much more powerful than any of them. She was willing to fix and change and fight, while the Time Lords simply tried to monitor it all. That's what made them blind to the only way they could ever end the Time War. Not by winning, but by dying.

When it happened, he had been tucked safely away, but when she locked them away she broke his prison. It tore him apart, as they had intended. Ripped his mind a million different ways, reduced him to a speck of consciousness wandering aimlessly, barely aware of itself. Then the monster found him, fixed him, and in return he was giving it what it wanted. The Doctor's Tardis. He was still a slave, after all these years.

Her eyes burned, "I don't know who you are, but you will give her back to me or I will tear this universe apart."

"Oh you are made of fire Doctor", he snarled, "Fire and ice and rage, but I knew you back when you were just a child, and I know that you won't kill me without a reason. You see, you're not a good person. You need to justify everything you do because what you do is wrong."

She swallowed hard and straightened her waistcoat, the Gallifreyan symbols glimmered in the spotlight. It seemed to follow her, as she began to walk toward him. The rules of this universe were infinitely malleable, but he hadn't imagined that she would realise that so quickly. She moved and the light moved with her. "You know too much about me," she said as she walked, "Who are you?"

"I was getting there before you interrupted with trivia," he reminded her.

"My apologies," she said stonily, without sounding remotely as though she had meant it.

"Very well", he sighed, "No more games". She stopped walking, the light stopped moving, her mouth opened, the sound didn't reach his ears. She pressed her palms against the wall of light, curious. The bronze clasps on her boots shone as she prowled forward and back in front of it, fiddling with some miniscule sonic device to no avail. He smiled, and strode toward her. She paused as his face became a ghostly globe, floating. There would be shivers crawling up her spine. She'd recognise him in that sneaky way you think you know people in shops. Her mind was powerful enough to retain some rooted familiarity. "Thank you for walking right into my trap," he said pleasantly, "Very thoughtful of you."

She said something, probably something rude. "Sorry, I can't hear you through the sonic sound-cancelling field. It's rather rudimentary, I'm afraid. These physics are still quite concrete, and cumbersome."

She didn't speak again, "Thank you," he said, "Now we can get down to business."

She crossed her arms and the fabric, torn a little around the shoulders from the escapades she'd no doubt put herself through in the past few days, ripped further, revealing the slightly tanned skin of her upper arms. What a strange creature she had turned into. So unlike a scholar, dirt-speckled, leaves in her hair, chopped short and fuzzy above her ears. "You've changed", he said, his voice a whisper, "So much I barely recognise you. Still, your name still carries with it the weight of a million atrocities, so it doesn't particularly matter how often you change your face, or even your gender. Your enemies will always find you."

The Lonely Lord paced in front of her, far enough away that he was just an outline to even her beady eyes, "Where was I?" he mused. "Ah yes, the Time Lords, far more dangerous than you gave them credit for. We soon found out. They sent us on a mission. You did it as a favour, for the freedom they gave you, not that you wanted their approval, but it helped not to be hunted constantly. You didn't like taking orders even then, but it was a delicious assignment. With it under your belt you could fly above the rest of them, righteous, and you liked that. So we went, you and I, out into the stars, but there was a monster there, far greater than you had imagined, or prepared for." The Lonely Lord stopped pacing and faced her, looking into her eyes, cautiously bright, the pupils still narrowed a little.

"You were exceedingly clever and it saved us, and as the moon where it had hidden burned, flooding the barren planet below, you realised that I was not me," he smiled, his teeth sparkled like deadly tea-lights, "The intriguing talent of this creature was to separate its consciousness from its body when it died, and it latched onto me. I was the perfect target, a snivelling little Time Agent with few friends and fewer talents. I had a friend who made me a bit important, but I was little more than your shadow, but you cared, anyway. That was why I loved you. You knew it straight away when you looked in my eyes. I was crying. My home was burning. In your eyes I was dead already, nothing more than the creature who had slaughtered a planet for a bit of peace." The Doctor shook her head, and her mouth moved. The Lonely Lord didn't bother to read her lips. It didn't matter.

"Still, you didn't kill me. I wasn't interested in attacking you, so you couldn't justify it. Bad people need good reasons to do what they want, so you left me, pulled us back to Gallifrey and there they took me. It seemed for a while as though sorting everything out would require little more than killing me, but the Council soon realised that I was a special sort of creature. Inside my mind, it found the Time Vortex, and it spread its poison to every point of time I had touched. It held time hostage, in other words. If it died it would take a millionth of the universe with it, and a millionth is still quite a bit. Enough to put me here, in a universe of my own, and here I have waited for… a long time".

She looked mystified; they'd erased every moment of him from her mind, because there were secrets those outside the council could not know, and the power to craft another universe was one of them. They were simple enough things, the physics were still faulty when they crafted his prison, and it was a miracle in itself that they'd managed to build it. It was small, but for one hundred years they'd shoved what they could not kill into it, severing the very existence of these things from their precious world. In here, he was harmless, locked away in his own negotiated corner of a world inhabited by monsters, beings even the mighty Lords of Time feared.

And soon she would remember. "I haven't been idle, however," he said, "I've been working away. They underestimated the strength of the telekinetic field in here. Strictly, it was meant to mirror the field that exists in their own universe, but it's slightly exacerbated. That lets me control the physics just a little, but you worked that much out. Did you think further than that? If I can control the physics, I can build whatever I want, so guess what?"

The Doctor stared at him, "What?" she asked, exaggerating her speech.

"You're going to remember me."


End file.
